I was listening to the tape of the Dalai Lama presentation on compassion. Initially the organizers wanted him to do the presentation about emptiness, which is one of the central concepts in Buddhism, but then they decided that it would be a very complicated topic. I spent some time thinking, why it is important to reach emptiness.
The meaning of emptiness became clearer to me after the recent talk with my former theater professor from Russia (I quit theater because it seemed too artificial to me compared with real life). After a long conversation about why I left theater and why he stayed there, he told me that he could not believe how a person could reach this emptiness without theater. I felt very appreciative and thanked him. He was not sure how I understood what he meant and asked if I could explain. I told him: “When we talked, I guess you sensed that in spite of our differences I was capable of connecting at a deeper level where our differences complimented each other. To be able to endure the tension of opposites requires a capacity of empting yourself in order to really hear another person. I guess that’s where you saw the similarity with theater, because in theater the actor aims to reach emptiness in order to channel the different characters”.
Think about the possibility of how much you can embody if you let go of your ego. One person? Two people? How about the world? Albert Einstein wrote: “To understand the world one must not be worrying about one’s self”. I see art as a tool that allows “not be worrying about one’s self” to happen. Thomas Merton said: “Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.” Maybe the ultimate goal of art is helping to move from seeing the glimpses of higher self to being in the state of constant connection to higher self. This means to see the beauty everywhere. To see the beauty in the sunrise is easy from me, but to do the same with somebody who calls me a loser would be truly artistic expression. Maybe that is what Vincent van Gogh meant when he said “I feel that there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people”. And you usually don’t get world recognition for quieting your ego in order to see the beauty in people, especially when they engage in name calling. But would not you call being fully present for others is the greatest gift one person can give to another?
For me, to be an artist means to be able to see through the illusion of separateness: perceiving the difference as opportunity to realize deeper oneness. If you are able to see beyond the tension of opposites instead of resist it you will appreciate that it holds the potential for unlimited possibilities. And I guess this is true whether we talk about art, sex, or physics. Talking about physics, Albert Einstein said: “A person experiences life as something separated form the rest – a kind of optical delusion of consciousness. Our task must be to free ourselves from this self-imposed prison, and through compassion, to find the reality of Oneness”.
I see the art of compassion as a key to freedom from the prison of separateness. I feel so passionate about it, that sometimes I call myself “Marshall” Artist, because Marshall Rosenberg is the name of the person, who for many years has been teaching people how to see beyond the separateness through compassionate communication.